HMRC is still downplaying the illicit trade

HMRC put the latest tobacco tax gap estimates out on Tuesday. As with the previous few years, they defy both belief and mathematics. Only 14% of tobacco is illicit, they claim, and illicit hand-rolling tobacco is at an all time low! Simple maths shows that HMRC’s figures cannot possibly be accurate. Converting kilograms of rolling tobacco into sticks, the equivalent of 36.6 billion cigarettes were…